Article: The Victory That Was Not a Victory

[Vrylakas]

There’s this odd phenomenon in European history whereby states were afraid to break the peace but the moment something happened that did break it, suddenly all hell broke loose and armies from everywhere fought each other all over the place. I think a 16th or 17th century observer of European history would probably not be surprised by the World Wars of the 20th century; you just knew that someday this melee was going to go global. I’m going to describe one such war, but from a Polish perspective (surprise, surprise) although there are many perspectives of this war. Still, the Polish perspective is a pinnacle one for this war, even though it still seems odd that because of events in the eastern-most backwater regions of Poland in the 17th century, boys from England, the Netherlands, Denmark., Brandenburg, Prussia, Sweden, Russia, Turkey, the Tartar lands, Ukraine, Lithuania and Poland would all be fighting one another.

This is a sad history for Poles, because it is the war that finally broke old feudal Poland (called Starapolska; “Old Poland”) and left it easy prey for a rising Russia.

Background

Poland and Lithuania had united under a common king and dynasty in 1386, though the two remained technically independent states. For the next two centuries the countries drew closer together under this dynasty, the Jagiellonians, until in 1569 the two formally created one united state, known to Poles as the Rzeczpospolita (Lithuanian: Zecpospolitas), the “Commonwealth”. Unfortunately the dynasty died out only 3 years after this union (Union of Lublin), leaving the Commonwealth at the mercy of its increasingly powerful aristocracy. The Commonwealth was ruled by a combination of the king and the parliament (“Sejm”). The king was elected, and the Sejm had immense powers over the king and country. In the decades following the demise of the Jagiellonians, the Commonwealth’s aristocracy began to harness the state for their own purposes, squeezing the peasantry and minorities to extremes unheard of in Europe at the time. The Commonwealth was a large empire (the 2nd largest state in 17th century Europe) with the largest Jewish and Moslem populations in Europe at the time, with a sizeable Orthodox Christian population, a large number of German Lutherans and even Poles and Lithuanians were split fairly evenly between Catholics and Protestants. In an age of religious nationalism, the Commonwealth was a powderkeg, and for that reason had instituted very strict tolerance laws. Further threatening the Commonwealth was its deteriorating geopolitical situation, with two powers rising nearby and looking greedily at the Commonwealth’s massive land empire: Sweden in the north and Russia to the east. One example of the nobility’s arrogance was their moving of the capital from old royal Kraków to the newer town Warsaw, which was a commercial center getting rich on the Baltic grain trade. The aristocracy’s increasingly oppressive policies were destabilizing the Commonwealth at a dangerous time.

This situation was particularly true in the Polish eastern lands, referred to by Poles and Russians as the Frontier (Polish: Ukrajna). Ukraine was a region inhabited by many different peoples, mostly Slavic but not all, and it was a region that neither the Commonwealth, Russia or the Ottoman empires ever controlled very effectively. Because of this many serfs and bandits fled oppression or justice in these three states to Ukraine, forming free military societies called, by the Turks, kazaki, or Cossacks. The Cossacks eventually organized into clan-like structures known as a Sech (Sich in Ukrainian), and rented out their military capabilities to any who could pay. 17th century Ukraine was like the American Wild West, except without the Federal government to occasionally restore order. Most of Ukraine had been ruled by Lithuania, then Poland and finally the Commonwealth since the 13th century, and it was ruled internally by a combination of Polish Wojewodes (literally “military governor” but by nowadays this simply means “provincial leader”) or by local Ruthenian nobility absorbed into the Polish nobility. With few peasants to work their soil the eastern nobles tried to impress the Cossacks into serfdom in the mid-17th century. One in particular, Jarema Wisnowiecki, a Ruthenian (Ukrainian) nobleman long since Polonized, was most brutal to the peasants and became known as ”the Terror of the Cossacks”.

Ogniem i mieczem (With Fire and Sword): The Feeling Begins

Simply put, Wisnowiecki pushed too far, and his arrogance helped fuel the rise of a Cossack leader who would defy him: Bohdan Khmelnitsky (Polish: Bogdan Chmielnicki). Khmelnitsky is a controversial character because while at certain times he showed a strategic aptitude bordering on genius, at other times he behaved quite foolishly and to the great detriment of his cause. Our story begins in 1648, the year the Treaty of Westphalia was signed, ironically ending the war that had torn Christian Europe apart but which the Commonwealth had managed to avoid.

In 1647 the Commonwealth’s king, Wladyslaw IV (from the Catholic line of the Swedish Vasa dynasty), discovered that the Cossacks were negotiating with the Crimean Tartars. Alarmed, he summoned Khmelnitsky to Warsaw and signed various agreements guaranteeing Cossack autonomy within the Commonwealth, and just for good measure he organized a joint Polish-Cossack campaign against the Moslems of Crimea. Well, this expedition never got off the ground, getting bogged down in bureaucracy and nitpicking in the Sejm over cost. Frustrated by the stalling, the eastern Wojewode Wisnowiecki took matters into his own hands and launched in 1648 his own invasion of Crimea, without even informing the king or Sejm. This enraged Khmelnitsky, and he in turn raised Cossack forces and attacked Wisnowiecki’s forces; the Khmelnitsky Rebellion had started.

Khmelnitsky immediately signed an alliance with the khan of Crimea, and the Cossack-Tartar forces soon rampaged throughout Ukraine killing nobles, Jews and Uniates (Orthodox Christians in the Commonwealth who had recognized the Roman Pope’s authority under an agreement reached in 1596) en masse. Peasants all over Ukraine (including Polish peasants) rose up against the nobles while nobles responded with extreme reprisals against peasant villages; terrible massacres took place. Furious over Wisnowiecki’s insolence but forced by events to act, the king dispatched a small force to deal with the Cossacks and Tartars. Unfortunately, he had seriously underestimated the enemy forces and the Polish army was quickly and humiliatingly defeated at the battles of Zolte Wody (“Yellow Water”) and Korsun. Khmelnitsky then marched towards Warsaw to address the king, even using his Polish titles in communications with the king as a conciliatory gesture, but before he (and his forces) reached the Wisla River, King Wladyslaw IV died.

The new king, Jan Kazimierz (John Casmir), tried in May to reach an agreement with Khmelnitsky but unsuccessfully, so the fighting continued and Ukraine’s bloodbath raged unabated. By the Spring of 1649 Khmelnitsky had chased and cornered Wisnowiecki to the fortress at Zbaraz, but the king dispatched a formidable relief force and signed a separate peace with the Tartars, leaving the Cossacks alone and exposed. After some minor engagements Khmelnitsky threw in the towel and signed a peace treaty with the Commonwealth which granted a surprising number of concessions to the Cossacks despite their rebellion. Neither the Sejm nor the Cossacks were happy with the treaty however, and soon Khmelnitsky was seeking an alliance with the Tartars and Ottoman Empire against the Commonwealth. King Jan Kazimierz dispatched another army to Ukraine and over three bloody days in June 1651, the Commonwealth’s armies triumphed over the combined Cossack-Tartar forces at the Battle of Beresteczko. This Polish-Lithuanian victory however proved dangerous for though his forces were heavily mauled at Beresteczko, Khmelnitsky did not yet give up; he made the ominous decision, long-since argued over by historians, to seek help from Moscow.

Stage II

In 1653 the Russian Tsar, Alexei I, offered to mediate between the Commonwealth and the Cossacks, but the Commonwealth refused. On 18. January, 1654, Moscow signed the Pact of Perejaslav with the Cossacks, effectively absorbing Ukraine into Russia with vague descriptions of autonomy for the Cossacks that would come back to haunt Ukraine. Alexei was not just gaining Ukraine, but also getting revenge against the Commonwealth for the humiliations of the defeat of 1634 at Polish hands and worse the Commonwelath’s interventions and occupation of Moscow in 1610-1613 that brought Alexei’s father, Mikhail Romanov, to power in Russia. Within months the Russians invaded the Commonwealth, in both Ukraine and Lithuania, first smashing the fortress at Smolensk and quickly taking a succession of other cities, including the Lithuanian capital Wilno/Vilnius (whose population was almost entirely killed). By summer, most of the eastern half of the Commonwealth lay in Russian control.

Stage III: Potop (“The Deluge”)

King Charles X Gustav of Sweden was the king of an increasingly powerful country but with one major flaw: Sweden was locked out of the very lucrative grain trade that flowed from Polish wheatfields to the West with Danish protection as it passed through the straits (usually on Dutch or English ships). Sweden had already fought several territorial wars with both the Commonwealth and Denmark in the early 17th century with varying degrees of success, but Charles saw a big opportunity when Russia invaded the Commonwealth in 1655.

In July 1655 the Swedes invaded the Commonwealth, and after some initial stiff resistance they managed to convince several Protestant Commonwealth nobles to surrender the fortress at Ujscie by the end of that month. Treachery would be a constant problem at the beginning of the Swedish phase of the war, with several nobles fighting for the Swedes, most notably Janusz Radziwill of Lithuania. By mid-September Warsaw fell and after a string of defeats to both the Swedes and Russians on 17. October Kraków fell. By the end of 1655 almost all of the Commonwealth was occupied by the Russians, Cossacks or Swedes, with only Gdansk and Lwów (Lvov) still holding out. The Swedish armies however began to pillage and massacre Catholics across Poland, inciting popular resistance and regional guerilla wars. In the meanwhile the Commonwealth’s only ally, Brandenburg, was defeated by the Swedes and switched sides, seizing the Commonwealth’s Pomeranian lands.

The turning point came in 1656 when the Swedish forces tried to take the monastery at Jasna Gora, called Czestochowa. The Commonwealth forces’ resistance at this monastery inspired a general uprising throughout the Commonwealth. In July the Commonwealth forces failed to re-take Warsaw (nearly capturing Charles himself) but they signed an alliance with their old enemy the Khan of Crimea and even the Holy Roman Emperor began to send supplies to aid them. What took place in the Commonwealth can only be described as a levee en masse, where every able-bodied person was pressed into military service. Polish forces also invaded Brandenburg, destroying farmland. To boot Moscow was becoming alarmed about the growth of Swedish power so the Russians declared war in the summer of 1656 and invaded Swedish Livonia.

With Swedish and Brandenburg forces coming under increasing attack across the Commonwealth, Charles invited the Transylvanians to invade in February 1657. Transylvania had been an integral part of Hungary since the 11th century but since the Ottoman conquest of Hungary led an autonomous existence within the Ottoman Empire, and in the Thirty Years War became virtually independent. Led by György Rákoczy, the Transylvanians invaded the Commonwealth and met Charles half way but in June Denmark declared war on Sweden so he hurried off home, leaving Rákoczy alone. In the meantime a Polish force invaded Transylvania and spread destruction, and in mid-July the Transylvanians were surrounded and defeated by Commonwealth forces. Paying a huge sum of reparations to secure his freedom, Rákoczy set off for home but was met by a Tartar force that destroyed his army and when he himself finally made it back to Kolozsvár (Klausenburg), he found that the Ottomans had intervened and ousted him from his throne.

A week after the defeat of the Transylvanians in July 1657 the Swedish forces were driven out of Kraków, and most of southern and central Poland was free again. The first Sejm since the beginning of the Swedish invasion was called, and a strategy for liberating the rest of the country was created.

In the meantime the Commonwealth and Denmark signed an alliance against the Swedes, as the Danish-Swedish war was not going well for the Danes. The Swedish forces quickly overran Bremen and Holstein, and within a few months controlled almost all of Jutland. The Danes first signed a treaty with the Swedes in February of 1658 but the Swedes tried to seize Copenhagen before the treaty was ratified by the Danish Rigsdag, provoking English and Dutch naval intervention to save Copenhagen (because of the disruption to the vital Baltic grain trade). While Commonwealth forces raged through Polish Prussia in autumn 1658 (evicting the Swedes from Thorn/Torun in November), a combined Commonwealth-Brandenburg-Austrian force (the Brandenburgers had switched sides again) departed for Denmark, where Polish forces helped evict the Swedes from fortresses at the island of Alsen and Koldynge in December 1658.

Also in 1658, a year after Khmelnitsky died, his successor as head of the Cossacks Ivan Vyhovsky negotiated a secret treaty with the Commonwealth king Jan Kazimierz in September called the Union of Hadziacz, which brought the Cossacks back to the Commonwealth’s side by creating a triangular structure between Poland, Lithuania and Ukraine (like the dual-monarchy structure of 19th and 20th century Austria-Hungary). To avoid being enserfed, the Cossacks were to be gradually absorbed into the nobility of the Commonwealth – although that simply meant they would rule over the peasant serfs of Ukraine as the Poles and Polonized Ukrainians had before the war. However, many Cossacks still saw a complete victory and independence through a Russian victory over the Commonwealth, and by the end of 1659 Vyhovsky was forced to flee and Khmelnitsky’s son Georg Khmelnitsky took over the Cossacks, renewing the alliance with Moscow.

Part II a'comin':

 

[Vrylakas]

Part II:

In 1659 the Swedes launched a two-pronged counter-attack in northern Poland but Commonwealth forces repulsed this assault and renewed their anti-Swedish advance, capturing several cities before having to deal with a renewed Russian threat. Sweden signed the Treaty of Oliwa with the Commonwealth in May 1660, ending the Swedish phase of the war by which Sweden renounced all conquests in the Commonwealth since 1655. An ominous outcome of the Treaty of Oliwa was the Treaty of Wehlau/Welawa, by which the Commonwealth relinquished its feudal rights in Prussia, effectively setting Prussia and its brilliant leader Friedrich Wilhelm independent. A side note to the Treaty of Wehlau was that it contained a clause that said should the Hohenzollerns ever be unable to fill the Prussian throne, Prussia then would revert to its status as a Polish fiefdom, but unfortunately the Hohenzollerns didn’t vacate the Prussian throne until 1918, by which time Poland couldn’t enforce the Treaty of Wehlau…

The Russians had renewed their war against the Commonwealth in late 1659, inflicting several defeats on Commonwealth forces and even approached Warsaw at one point in 1660. However, under the very able leadership of Stefan Czarniecki (who had led most of the Polish victories in the war thus far), the Commonwealth forces marshaled and defeated the Russians at Polonka in June 1660. In Ukraine, Commonwealth forces led by Jerzy Lubomirski repulsed a Russian attack at Lubar and by November had surrounded and destroyed a Russian army at Cudnow. The Russian phase of the war dragged on for several more years, with Russian forces suffering particular defeats in 1661-63 (losing much of the territory they’d conquered in 1655), and in 1662 the Commonwealth and the Cossacks once again signed yet another alliance.

Final Stage to Meltdown: This is Getting Ridiculous!

Standing largely victorious in 1665, Jan Kazimierz decided to enact some desperately-needed reforms to rein in the Sejm and the aristocracy. He was not alone in this endeavor; Denmark also enacted similar reforms to strengthen the country against further threats from Sweden. However, while the Danish reforms were successful the Commonwealth’s reforms sparked an aristocratic rebellion led by Lubomirski, and for two years royal and aristocratic forces fought one another in a bloody civil war. The king’s forces were defeated at the Battle of Matwy in 1666, killing the reforms and with it killing any chance Poland-Lithuania could reform itself to meet the coming challenges of the 18th century.

The Lubomirski Rebellion also weakened the Commonwealth’s stance vis-à-vis Russia, so that on 31. January 1667 the Commonwealth and Russia signed the Treaty of Andruszów/Andrusovo, partitioning Ukraine between them despite the Commonwealth’s impressive military gains over the past decade. This partition of Ukraine in 1667 looked eerily like the partition of Ukraine that Poland and Soviet Russia would carry out with the Treaty of Riga in 1921. The Commonwealth recovered most of its lost territories from the war, while Russia recovered for the first time since the 13th century Kiiv/Kiev/Kijów, the mother of Russian cities. Utterly fed up, king Jan Kazimierz abdicated in 1672 and retired to a monastery in France.

But it wasn’t over yet.

Fietr Deroshenke, who had taken over the Cossack leadership after Georg Khmelnitsky, cut a deal with the Ottoman Empire and launched an attack on the Commonwealth in 1667. They were initially successful, but the Commonwealth was once again lucky in having a very competent commander in Ukraine, Jan (John) Sobieski. Sobieski, with a tiny force of 8000, managed to repulse 30,000-strong Cossack-Tartar forces, forcing them to sign a truce. However, the Ottoman Empire invaded and managed to seize the fortress of Kamieniec Podolski (1672) before other inconclusive battles with the Commonwealth (including an impressive Commonwealth repulse of the Ottoman forces at Lwów) ended with a truce in 1673. The Ottomans demanded the Commonwealth to pay a massive reparations sum to make the peace permanent and only then did the Commonwealth’s aristocracy realize the danger the country faced – they understood money, if nothing else – and they raised taxes for a major expansion of the army. The Turks invaded repeatedly over the next two years, usually repulsed by the Commonwealth but at great cost, and the fortress of Kamieniec Podolski remained in Ottoman hands. Only in 1676 did peace come to the Commonwealth.

Requiem

While in 1676 the Commonwealth stood victorious, nearly all of its cities lay in ruins, its fields burned or grown over, and an entire generation of its young men lay buried in graves across Ukraine, Poland, Lithuania or Prussia. Poland-Lithuania was a broken power, never again able to confront either Russia or Prussia as a military equal. Though the Commonwealth still had one last gasp of greatness in it (see “Asia begins at the Landstrasse…”) in 1683, it was finished as a state able to influence European history any longer…at least until 1918.

 

[The Yankee]

Another very interesting piece. I wonder where you dig up all these things. I'd certainly like to see more articles concerning Eastern Europe. Unfortunately, it seems that way back when my family was a part of the nobility, they might have taken some of the bad parts of the story, esp. the parts of the nobility inflaming certain peoples.

I had an inkling that it was around this time that Poland's fate was sealed, but I never knew for sure, because I never had the resources. Perhaps that will change once I'm off to college in the fall.

Would be nice if there was some way to trace back the family line to see how my family played a part in all this.

Can't wait for another great article, if that should pass.

 

[Knight-Dragon]

Vrylakas is Polish, and had studied history for a decade or so (I think) in universities in Eastern Europe. Now lives in America. He wrote the articles himself.

 

[The Yankee]

Ah, no wonder. I've been hampered by the horrible New York City public education system! Hopefully, one of these days, I'll try to learn Russian in college and maybe tour through Eastern Europe. Who knows, I may one day find my family in Poland, separated since World War II.

Excellent articles.

 

[Vrylakas]

The Yankee wrote:

Another very interesting piece. I wonder where you dig up all these things. I'd certainly like to see more articles concerning Eastern Europe. Unfortunately, it seems that way back when my family was a part of the nobility, they might have taken some of the bad parts of the story, esp. the parts of the nobility inflaming certain peoples.

Though my time is increasingly constrained, I do intend to keep the articles on Eastern European history comin'.

I had an inkling that it was around this time that Poland's fate was sealed, but I never knew for sure, because I never had the resources. Perhaps that will change once I'm off to college in the fall.

Yes, this was the point past which Poland could less likely reform itself enough to meet modern challenges.

Would be nice if there was some way to trace back the family line to see how my family played a part in all this.

Sometimes it's best not to know what ones' ancestors did...

Can't wait for another great article, if that should pass.

T'will, probably this weekend.

 

[The Yankee]

Yes, this was the point past which Poland could less likely reform itself enough to meet modern challenges.

It's always better to know how it happened, rather than looking at maps, watching the territory dwindle to nothingness, and wonder what on Earth happened. Maybe the fall was inevitable, but it's always interesting to know how that happened, rather than just the usual excuse of a large nation collapsing on itself because it was too old.

Sometimes it's best not to know what ones' ancestors did...

Perhaps you're right. However, I do take pride on the good/heroic things my ancestors have done. An ancestor on my father's side fought against large odds against Mexico during Texas' war of independence (he was killed), my grandfather (mother's side) fought for Poland during WWII...eventually taking part in underground movements to ferry out Jews and others hunted by the Nazis before being turned in. Never knew him, but he was quite good at his job, cavalry.

I'm sure my grandfather's family took part in the bickering and horrible policies that tore Poland to shreds. Since they were part of the nobility, it was inevitable. Still...I would like to find out what became of my family in Poland, and maybe take a look at things that they managed to save, such as the coat of arms, several swords and the like. I've always been fascinated by swords...maybe taking one and walking through New York will give me a seat on the subway.

Who knows...maybe some of my family participated at Tannenberg (1410)...using that name only because that's the most widely known, at least to anyone that paid attention in America.

Look forward to your next article. I'm prefering these to what they gave us back in high school. ::sigh:: American public education......here's a product of it.